Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to computer-aided design (CAD) and, more specifically, to adaptive mesh refinement.
Description of the Related Art
A wide variety of graphics-oriented software applications are currently available to end-users, including computer-aided design (CAD) applications, computer graphics applications, and three-dimensional (3D) modeling applications, among others. Many of these software applications allow an end-user to create and modify 2D and/or 3D graphics designs. For example, an end-user may interact with a 3D modeling application to add geometry to a design, remove geometry from a design, extrude portions of the design, or join two or more designs. Such operations typically are performed by modifying a mesh of primitives (e.g., triangles) included in the design. However, such operations oftentimes introduce distortions and irregularities into the mesh. For example, extruding or displacing a region of a mesh can affect triangles in and around the region, producing triangles having irregular shapes, sizes, angles, etc.
Conventionally, the end-user must manually repair mesh triangles to correct mesh distortions and irregularities. However, manually repairing mesh triangles can be tedious and time-consuming for the end-user. Moreover, even after attempting repairs of distortions, modified regions of the design often include a twisted mesh of irregular triangles having undesirable characteristics (e.g., large opening angles). Such irregularities may produce numerical and computational issues and/or produce visual artifacts during subsequent processing of the mesh.
As the foregoing illustrates, there is a need in the art for a more effective way to enable application end-users to repair triangle mesh distortions and irregularities.